Post Office inquiry: Former complaints handler executive says she never ‘knowingly’ did anything wrong
A former top Post Office executive has told the Horizon scandal inquiry she never “knowingly” did anything wrong and did not remember a 2010 email saying that cash balances in sub-postmasters’ branch accounts could be remotely accessed.
Angela van den Bogerd, who held various roles over 35 years at the organisation, made the comments after opening her evidence on Thursday by saying she was “truly, truly sorry” for the “devastation” caused to wrongly convicted sub-postmasters.
Her roles at the Post Office included handling complaints about its Horizon software, which was provided by Japanese firm Fujitsu.
More than 700 Post Office managers were prosecuted between 1999 and 2015, after the system made it seem like money was missing from branches. At the time, the company insisted Horizon was robust.
Ms van der Bogerd, who was played by Coronation Street actress Katherine Kelly in the ITV drama Mr Bates Vs The Post Office, had previously not spoken publicly since a 2019 High Court case.
At the time, Judge Peter Fraser criticised her testimony and said she “did not give me frank evidence, and sought to obfuscate matters, and mislead me”.
Jason Beer KC, lead counsel to the inquiry, challenged Ms van den Bogerd’s opening statement, as he accused her of not saying sorry for her own role in the scandal.
Ms van den Bogerd, who resigned as the Post Office’s business improvement director in 2020, said she regretted missing significant documents and apologised for “not getting to the answer more quickly”.
She said: “But with the evidence I had and the parameters of my role at the time, I did the best I could to the best of my ability.”
Ms van den Bogerd added: “I didn’t knowingly do anything wrong and I would never knowingly do anything wrong.”
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The inquiry heard that Ms van den Bogerd was sent an email in December 2010 informing her Fujitsu could remotely amend cash balances in branch accounts via Horizon.
She told the inquiry she had no memory of it and only became aware of the issue in a January 2011 email.
The inquiry was shown a transcript of a meeting that same month between her and sub-postmistress Rachpal Athwal, who was sacked after being wrongly accused of stealing £710 before being reinstated.
In the meeting, Ms van den Bogerd said Horizon could not be accessed remotely by anyone from the Post Office, without mentioning that Fujitsu could, the inquiry heard.
Mr Beer asked: “Are you saying that what you said overall there is accurate?”
Ms van den Bogerd replied: “So that is accurate. I go on to talk later about Fujitsu, I believe”. Mr Beer said it was inaccurate because she had not given the full picture.
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Scandal ‘tip of the iceberg’
The inquiry also heard that, prior to a High Court case in 2019, Ms van den Bogerd made a witness statement in 2018 in which she said the first she knew of the possibility of inserting transactions into the system remotely was in the year or so before.
Mr Beer told the inquiry: “That was false.”
She replied: “Well, at the time I didn’t think it was.”
Pressed further on the issue, she said the messaging on remote access was “constantly changing” and that colleagues had been “very strong” that such access was “impossible”.
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‘I have had breakdowns’
Ms van den Bogerd was also asked about an October 2014 email she and other senior staff were sent by Post Office media officer Melanie Corfield, which discussed what the response should be if anyone asked about remote access to Horizon.
The email said: “Our current line if we are asked about remote access potentially being used to change branch data/transactions is simply: ‘This is not and never has been possible’.”
Mr Beer said: “You knew that was false from multiple sources by then, by now, didn’t you?”
Ms van den Bogerd appeared flustered, before replying: “Clearly I was aware of that and just didn’t pick this up… it didn’t register with me at the time, but obviously from what we’ve discussed then this was incorrect terms of reference of a flow of information, yes.”
She added she was “certainly not trying to cover up… it wasn’t just me, there were other people party to the same information”.
Meanwhile, earlier in the hearing, the former executive said she agreed with Mr Beer that using words such as “exception” or “anomaly” to describe computer bugs had been an “attempt to control the narrative”.
The inquiry continues.
Budget fears and unseasonably warm weather led to consumers spending far less than expected last month, according to official figures.
In a sign of a slowing economy, retail sales fell a sharp 0.7%, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said.
The fall was larger than expected. A drop of 0.3% was forecasted by economists polled by the Reuters news agency.
Money blog: Energy bills to rise in January
Clothing stores were particularly affected, where sales fell by 3.1% over the month as October temperatures remained high, putting shoppers off winter purchases.
Retailers across the board, however, reported consumers held back on spending ahead of the budget, the ONS added.
Just a month earlier, in September, spending rose by 0.1%.
Despite the October fall, the ONS pointed out that the trend is for sales increases on a yearly and three-monthly basis and for them to be lower than before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Retail sales figures are significant as household consumption measured by the data is the largest expenditure across the UK economy.
The data can also help track how consumers feel about their financial position and the economy more broadly.
Another signal of a slowing economy was the latest growth figures which showed a smaller-than-expected GDP (gross domestic product) measurement.
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Business owners worried after budget
Consumer confidence could be bouncing back
Also released on Friday was news of a rise in consumer confidence in the weeks following the budget and the US election.
Market research company GfK’s long-running consumer confidence index “jumped” in November, the company said, as people intended to make Black Friday purchases.
It noted that inflation has yet to be tamed with people still feeling acute cost-of-living pressures.
It will take time for the UK’s new government to deliver on its promise of change, it added.
A quirk in the figures
Economic research firm Pantheon Macro said the dates included in the ONS’s retail sales figures could have distorted the headline figure.
The half-term break, during which spending typically increases, was excluded from the monthly statistics as the cut-off point was 26 October.
With cold weather gripping the UK this week clothing sales are likely to rise as delayed winter clothing purchases are made, Pantheon added.
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